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Overview
Traversal in Chrono Odyssey spans multiple movement systems across Setera's seamless open world. Players can ride tamed horses, scale walls and rooftops via parkour, swim through water bodies, double jump across gaps, and sprint across terrain. All without loading screens thanks to Unreal Engine 5's World Partition system. The traversal design draws inspiration from Black Desert Online's acclaimed movement systems while adding Chrono Odyssey's own time-manipulation twist through the Chronotector.
Horse Taming
Mounts are unlocked early in the game after completing introductory quests. The specific quest that introduces the horse taming system is called "Gone With The Wind". After completing this quest, players learn the mechanics of horse taming and can begin capturing wild horses that roam the open world.
Wild horses can be tamed using two distinct methods:
Stealth Approach Press TAB, select the sneak icon, and slowly approach a wild horse without startling it. Once close enough, press E to begin the taming process. Patience is essential. Sudden movements, sprinting, or getting too close too quickly will spook the horse, causing it to flee. The stealth approach rewards careful, deliberate movement and is the intended "natural" method of taming.
Temporal Isolation Use the Chronotector's Temporal Isolation ability (accessed via the TAB menu, top icon) to freeze nearby horses in place for several seconds. While the horse is frozen, walk up and calm it to complete the taming process. This creative application of the game's time-manipulation mechanics offers a faster but resource-dependent alternative to the stealth approach.
Once tamed, a horse is permanently bound to the player and can be summoned at will to increase movement speed across the open world. Mount skins are available for visual customization. A distinctive all-black horse is available for purchase at a cost of 100,000 gold, representing a significant investment and status symbol.
Parkour and Climbing
Characters can scale rooftops, ruins, cliff faces, and walls using a parkour system similar to Black Desert Online's traversal mechanics. Climbing is fully integrated into both casual exploration and Labyrinth puzzle content, where platforming challenges require precise jumps and wall navigation. The parkour system supports vertical exploration in ways that most MMORPGs restrict, allowing players to reach elevated vantage points, discover hidden areas, and take shortcuts through terrain.
Ability | Details |
|---|---|
Double Jump | Available to all characters regardless of class. Extends both vertical and horizontal reach, making it essential for platforming sections and gap traversal. Double jump is usable in combat as well as exploration. |
Wall Climbing | Characters can grip and ascend vertical surfaces. The climbing speed and stamina consumption depend on the character's equipment and perks. |
"Hardcore Parkour" Perk | A footwear perk that grants 18% haste for 5 seconds after completing a traversal action (climbing, vaulting, or landing from a significant height). This perk rewards players who actively use the parkour system by providing a meaningful movement speed bonus that carries into subsequent actions, including combat. The haste bonus makes parkour-oriented builds viable for both exploration efficiency and tactical combat positioning. |
Swimming
Swimming is confirmed as a traversal mechanic, allowing players to cross rivers, lakes, and coastal areas without mounts or bridges. Water bodies throughout Setera are fully swimmable, supporting the game's emphasis on open exploration and multiple pathing options. Players can swim to reach islands, cross waterways to avoid hostile zones, or access hidden areas only reachable by water.
Note: while swimming is confirmed, watercraft and boats have not been confirmed as a traversal option. It remains uncertain whether any form of water vessel will be available at launch.
Sprint and Movement
Sprinting is a core movement mechanic that uses a limited stamina meter. Following the post-CBT combat overhaul detailed in Developer's Notes #4 (January 2026), several significant movement improvements were announced:
Feature | Details |
|---|---|
Instant Sprint | The sprint starting animation was removed entirely. Sprinting now triggers immediately upon input with no windup delay. This change was one of the most requested improvements from the CBT1 community, where the animation delay made sprinting feel sluggish. |
Mid-Air Sprint Queuing | If the sprint key is pressed while the character is mid-jump or mid-air, the character automatically enters sprint state upon landing. This eliminates the need to re-press sprint after every jump, creating smoother movement flow during parkour sequences and combat dodging. |
Camera-Independent Movement | Characters now move independently from the camera direction. Players can strafe, retreat, and reposition without being locked to the camera's facing direction. This change enables tactical retreating during combat (backpedaling while watching the enemy), strafing during Raid mechanics, and more fluid movement during exploration. Camera-independent movement was highlighted as a major improvement in the Developer's Notes #4 deep-dive on the combat overhaul. |
Chronotector-Enhanced Traversal
The Chronotector provides additional traversal utility beyond its combat applications:
Ability | Effect |
|---|---|
Temporal Resistance | Reduces fall damage, allowing players to survive drops from greater heights during parkour sequences. |
Time Reversal | Records a position and allows rewinding to it. Useful for recovering from missed jumps during Labyrinth platforming or exploring dangerous terrain where a fall could be fatal. |
Temporal Isolation | Can freeze horses for taming (as described above) and can freeze environmental hazards during traversal. |
Temporal Tuning | Reveals hidden paths and environmental details that may offer traversal shortcuts or access to secret areas. |
Biomes and Terrain
The full launch map is described as four times larger than the CBT1 test region, spanning an enormous variety of terrain types. Confirmed biomes include grasslands, snowlands, swamps, dense forests, deserts, frozen valleys, coastlines, ancient ruins, and pocket dimensions of warped spacetime. Each biome presents different traversal challenges and opportunities. Snowlands may slow movement, forests offer vertical climbing routes, and warped spacetime pockets may alter the rules of physics entirely.
Gathering, fishing, combat, and parkour all flow together naturally across these diverse environments. The traversal system is designed to make the journey between content locations feel engaging rather than tedious, with the diverse biomes providing constant visual and mechanical variety.